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Post by meticulousDemiurge on Sept 6, 2012 2:40:09 GMT -5
Going to periodically throw out my thoughts here instead of cluttering up the boards with more of my pointless threads (and threads that become pointless after somebody answers my inane questions).
So there's me, (that is Nestor Planck, Thief of Dream) plus- Stanley Borodin as diogenesWept, Guard of Life
- Victor Alphonse as bobsledHostage, Smith of Stars
- Cassandra Lim as refurbishedHomunculus, Bane of Mind
- Jessica Watts as endemicEurypterid, Ward of Time
- Sarah Buchanan as antipathicAntihydrogen, Sage of Space
together in our first session.
I believe I speak for the entirety of my session (at least I hope I do considering none of my teammates can even access the forum) when I say our priorities are, (beginning with the most vital)
- 1: Not Dying
- 2: Not Dying alone (Jessica mentioned this as being important, I asked her why and she kicked me in the shin)
and the best (also only) way to accomplish these things is to beat the game.
Due to some miserable prototyping decisions and shitty game design all our enemies can fly, inflict poison, and regenerate their health, and they also seem fond of straight up murdering consorts (I assume players too, really really hoping to avoid that). Apparently our difficulty scaling is also broken, we're getting ghasts and shoggoths where Cassandra says we should only be seeing ogres and basilisks.
We're trying to stick together as much as possible and while this is causing us some problems with getting quests done it seems to be our best bet for not getting killed. My main concern right now is with Stanley and Jessica (she's sort of our leader), Stanley hates working with groups and ducks out at every opportunity, and Jessica's our time player so we hardly ever see her. The real problem is that according to our Bane of Mind, they're both at risk of developing addictions to their mental support abilities. Victor and Sarah don't really see this as a problem (Sarah generally just doesn't seem to worry about things and I read that stars players tend to accept things so that would explain Victor) but Cass keeps telling me some of the possible outcomes are pretty unpleasant (I have no idea how her mind powers work, and sometimes I think neither does she).
I'll dump more neurotic rambling later, I need to try and take another nap. The last five or so attempts have been really horribly interrupted, apparently the Grid hates sleep (If anyone has dealt with this from their whisperings before please advise).
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Post by disasterAverted on Sept 6, 2012 6:43:40 GMT -5
Beating the game doesn't leave you any better off than you were before. Making steady progress towards beating the game is how you avoid dying. And on that note, don't worry if you're completing quests slowly so long as you're moving forward. (That said, you personally might find yourself running out of mental ammunition by the end if your session lasts too long).
The enemies always put forth some baseline effort to murder your consorts, the difference is that yours are so overpowered for this point in the game that their every attempt is likely to result in a massacre.
((edit: Oh god I forgot who I was logged in as and posted with the wrong character and now you've already replied so I can't fix it. This was supposed to be silentAnswer))
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Post by meticulousDemiurge on Sept 6, 2012 18:18:13 GMT -5
Couldn't sleep, again, I'm beginning to think I might supposed to be taking the "Thief of Dream" role more literally. I can steal things and I can dream up some pretty nasty attacks but I wonder if maybe there's something thematic I'm missing.
A few of the important[?] abilities we've found so far (listed here for my own benefit)- [Innocent When You Dream] Dream ability, substantially buffs your sleeping self's defense. Was awesome for getting out of tough situations before the Grid decided it was time for me to get excited about insomnia.
- [All the World is Green] Life ability, provides AOE healing and can be stacked. Helpful when our life player actually decides to accompany us.
- [Brain Trust] Mind power, allows the mind player to tap into other player's brainitude. Useful but VERY invasive and unpleasant for co-players caught unawares. Cass promised not to do it again without telling us (or maybe she just got better at concealing it).
- [Billions and Billions] Stars ability, amplifies gravity manipulation. Currently Victor doesn't have the pluck to cast it.
We're doing pretty well for money, Jessica didn't want to deal with the stock market on her land (Neon & Nickel) so she went into the past and just bought a shitton of Dersite government bonds, and so far that's been working fairly well. She's also been training and leveling like crazy, from what I understand she very quickly decided she didn't want to encounter any dead selves (understandably), and discovered that a lot of the doomed timelines existed because one or more of us refused to listen to her advice. Her plan has essentially been to grind until she's powerful enough that if any of us ignore her helpful hints she can strong arm us into whatever's necessary to preserve the timeline. Of course being the leader she felt it was her prerogative not to tell anyone this (presumably because of the possibility of nobody listening), so now our first warning in case of possible time transgression is a pissed off Ward appearing from the past ready to kick someone's ribs in. I don't know if this is a healthy attitude but according to both her and our Mind player it'll at least cut down the risk of dooming ourselves.
Beating the game doesn't leave you any better off than you were before. Making steady progress towards beating the game is how you avoid dying. And on that note, don't worry if you're completing quests slowly so long as you're moving forward. (That said, you personally might find yourself running out of mental ammunition by the end if your session lasts too long). [/quote] No argument there, I'm not in any hurry to say goodbye to all my friends forever (I can only hope they feel the same about me).
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Post by meticulousDemiurge on Sept 9, 2012 18:25:14 GMT -5
Ok I figured it out, I can only sleep in other people's beds (preferably without asking them). It seems really obvious now but at the same time really stupid. Yes I know using any land beds but my own is considered gauche but I am literally incapable of sleeping anywhere else.
Our Bane of Mind, Ward of Time, Sage of Space and Smith of Stars have all convened for some high level long range planning, given that they can all sort of scry (or predict the future in some similar fashion) whatever they come up with is going to be very important. This may explain why they didn't invite Stan or me.
Roleplay-wise going to spy on them seems like a fantastic idea. On the other hand there's a fairly good chance they'll see me coming, and I'd rather avoid a repeat of the last time Jess caught me looking at her time-plans.
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Post by ExtropianDreamer on Sept 9, 2012 19:30:18 GMT -5
Roleplay-wise going to spy on them seems like a fantastic idea. On the other hand there's a fairly good chance they'll see me coming, and I'd rather avoid a repeat of the last time Jess caught me looking at her time-plans.
A Thief would make sure she was never caught. What they don't know can't hurt them, after all. |
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Post by meticulousDemiurge on Sept 10, 2012 23:17:17 GMT -5
A Thief would make sure she was never caught. What they don't know can't hurt them, after all. [/quote] Well, that was certainly interesting. I used [Everything is Made From Dreams] (dream buff that lets you manipulate objects like they were dream constructs) to make myself transparent, I think it also gave me the added bonus of cloaking myself in the Grid because if any of them detected me they didn't act like it (I'm going to try and avoid overthinking it since it's possible that this was part of their plan the whole time). I got ghost images of everything they wrote down, including some blueprints our smith of stars was passing around. The fact that he even drew anything up is a huge step for him, when we were kids he would always get frustrated and wreck anything he built before finishing it. I haven't tried to alchemize any of the plans yet because looking at his notes the grist cost would be astronomical (gotta wait until we have enough that the team wouldn't miss it) but some of it looks really cool. The whole alchemy thing has honestly been one of the most fun parts of this whole wretched experience. Aside from all that Jessica (Ward of Time) and Sarah (Sage of Space) nearly got into a fistfight over the best way to handle something on the dream moons (Vic and Cass didn't seem to know what they were talking about), once again this required the intervention of future selves to avoid serious bodily harm. The fact that her future selves are more levelheaded indicates that at some point we're able to help Jess with whatever she's dealing with (I can't even imagine how awful Time must be), which leaves Stan, our Guard of Life, for us to worry about. The last thing I heard before I slunk out was that there's a point coming up soon on the timeline where nobody can find him. He's been getting surlier and more avoidant lately, I think it's time I tried to find him. |
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Post by meticulousDemiurge on Sept 11, 2012 20:58:21 GMT -5
Turns out I may need some assistance.
I haven't managed to find Stan's real self, but I did figure out why he's been so cagey and irritable. The Derse agents (being the loveable rascals that they are) decided it was an amazing idea to chain his dreamself up on the roof of one of the buildings. Dream Stan's been soaking up whispering from the furthest ring this entire time, most likely he's been avoiding sleep but I'll bet he can feel it when he's awake too (Cass' notes mention Stan should be especially vulnerable as a life player).
I don't know what to do, my first instinct is to go up there and try getting him down (stealing his dreamself, as it were) except his dreamself could wake up on me, it could be really corrupt and I've never dealt with anything like that before. I don't want to ask the Smith of Stars when the next Derse eclipse is (that would give away that I've been snooping), but I think it's coming up and I want to get him inside somehow before it happens.
The whole thing feels like a particularly fiendish trap or a great way to get my friend killed by mishandling the situation, I'm trying really hard not to freak out about it.
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lucidChthonia
Full Member
?I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.? ― Sherlock Holmes%\1\%
Posts: 105
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Post by lucidChthonia on Sept 12, 2012 2:32:15 GMT -5
If you have decent carapace rep (either moon), the Observatories can be asked for the tables of Derse and Prospit eclipse times. If you have good enough carapace rep, they'll help you figure out the exact time windows you have.
On Derse, ask for the Fascinated Astronomer, she's got lower rep requirements, although you'll need to run her a cup of coffee from a Cafe before she'll talk.
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Post by ExtropianDreamer on Sept 12, 2012 8:49:11 GMT -5
You might try countering his corruption a little before you rescue him. Sneak-hugs and planting something angelic on his dreamself would probably start taking the edge off it.
Worst comes to worse and he does flip out when you rescue him, try to lure him to the Crypt before you kill him. Ascension is better than just losing a dreamself.
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Post by disasterAverted on Sept 12, 2012 18:02:53 GMT -5
Yeah, do not go planting anything angelic on his dreamself. That sounds like a great way to earn him the Others' undivided and hostile attention. You might want to try giving his realself something angelic though, if he'll accept it. He might not since too much Other corruption will make him despise such items though. If you don't have anything angelic on you I'm sure someone on chat can recommend a recipe-modus solution or two (don't laugh, the angels themselves are late-game content and Christian Bibles aren't popular in every world).
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Post by meticulousDemiurge on Sept 13, 2012 23:31:41 GMT -5
If you have decent carapace rep (either moon), the Observatories can be asked for the tables of Derse and Prospit eclipse times. If you have good enough carapace rep, they'll help you figure out the exact time windows you have. On Derse, ask for the Fascinated Astronomer, she's got lower rep requirements, although you'll need to run her a cup of coffee from a Cafe before she'll talk.
- 1: Stan's dreamself is much more corrupt than I thought, it hasn't woken up since I got it down from the roof but it keeps glubbing in its sleep, it leaks black stuff whenever its mouth opens.
- 2: According to the notes I snagged from the meeting, my coplayers are going to try and kill off his real self (this is apparently 100 percent guaranteed to happen if we want to preserve the timeline). The disturbing part is that I think they're going to try to tier him, which could mean not only waking up his corrupt dreamself but giving it god-powers. I'm a little vaguer on this part but the Ward of Time's scribblings in the margins seem to indicate that this ascension is also mandatory.
Worst comes to worse and he does flip out when you rescue him, try to lure him to the Crypt before you kill him. Ascension is better than just losing a dreamself.
I'm not really familiar with this mechanic, I did find the crypt but it's sealed up pretty tight, I'd need equipment from my real self to break in. Would his dreamself being in the crypt when he ascends purge him of the Other's influence?
Yeah, do not go planting anything angelic on his dreamself. That sounds like a great way to earn him the Others' undivided and hostile attention. You might want to try giving his realself something angelic though, if he'll accept it. He might not since too much Other corruption will make him despise such items though. If you don't have anything angelic on you I'm sure someone on chat can recommend a recipe-modus solution or two (don't laugh, the angels themselves are late-game content and Christian Bibles aren't popular in every world).
This sort of explains why Stan was so fixated on what I assumed was a keychain, turns out it's a rosary (yes don't laugh, my parents were non-practicing CotBG so I never learned this stuff). This is yet another thing I wish I had figured out before we lost track of him.
I think my only real option is to fix his corruption problem before he ascends and wakes up. I tried basically every permutation of hugging, snuggling and cuddling possible but it didn't seem to have any effect (does it only work when the victim is awake?). I'm going to search his house with my real self for angelic stuff to alchemize while I hide out with him here on Derse (Controlling both selves at once takes serious getting used to, thank god for [Abstracted Thought]).
Any advice? Is it creepy that right now one half of me is watching our Guard of Life sleep?
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Post by meticulousDemiurge on Sept 20, 2012 20:41:34 GMT -5
I think I fucked up
I got into the crypt with [Good Man is Hard to Find] (I thought I would never use it but it was exactly what I needed to grab the key off the Dignitary) and plopped Stan's dream self down on the slab. Just in time too, our smith of stars finished him off with a buffed version of [Worth the Weight] and there wasn't anything left for him to drop on the quest bed. Point is he ascended just fine alive.
That was a few days ago and we thought Stan was doing okay. Turns out he's not. The corruption's coming back when he sleeps, almost every time now he mumbles broodfester and wakes up dripping black stuff, he's afraid (nobody tell him I said that) to sleep because all he dreams is the Others screaming at him. We've been keeping it at bay with hugs and by never letting him out of our sight but it could get a whole lot worse. Sarah suggested somebody just spoon with him whenever he sleeps, I think maybe she was joking but it's really the best idea we have, although Stan would probably hate it. I haven't tried giving him anything angelic since that might just upset the Others even worse, which is the last thing we need.
This could be a permanent thing that he has to deal with for the rest of his life because I dropped him off in the crypt without trying to fix it. If anyone has a way to fix this I'd really like to know how.
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Post by genesisArtificer on Sept 21, 2012 0:15:57 GMT -5
well fuck. that shouldn't happen.
Ascension is almost guaranteed method of clearing Corruption, ichorbleedy Dreamself or not.
something more sinister has to be at play. that or just fucking glitch again.
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Post by meticulousDemiurge on Sept 25, 2012 0:02:02 GMT -5
Um
Jessica decided that since Stan's a guard of life, we could boost his ARC by having him focus on healing a friend, and that might be enough to de-corrupt him. Unfortunately for us she made the executive decision that the best way to give him somebody to focus on was to traumatize our Bane of Mind by triggering [Endless Climb]. I don't know the specifics of what she did, Victor says Jess provoked Cassandra until she autocast it, then beat her unconscious. Unfortunately for her (I don't know but I want to consider this part instant karma), traumatizing one of your friends, even to help another one, apparently isn't how a Ward of Time's supposed to behave, the Beat abandoned her. That means no time travel and no psybuffs, which if nothing else should take care of her quasi-addiction (albeit in the most horrible way possible). Jess had to have known what would happen, I don't know if her doing it anyway is inspiring or really scary. Neither of them can really function right now and Stan's occupied doing the life thing for them, I don't know how much it'll help any of them but he seems convinced he can help.
According to Sarah (our Sage of Space) the problem might be our prototypings again. Apparently in Dark Souls (wow was prototyping that an amazing idea) the only way to cure corruption is death. I don't even want to think about killing Stan but apparently that's the only sure fire solution. Question is, does killing somebody to fix their corruption problem count as just? If he does it himself would that make it heroic? I don't really understand the mechanics beyond what was in the FAQ.
I think I'm a pretty useless thief of dream, half my friends are hurt and I don't really have any ideas at all for how to help them.
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